Louisville? I HATE Excuses.

It’s Wednesday, which means I’ve had a full three days to build up hate for Louisville, and honestly, I need to write this before my head explodes. Clemson heads north this Saturday, to the land of rolling green pastures and trailer park pillbillies in an early season ACC Atlantic showdown.

Clemson enters the game reeling from yet another win over a top 20 SEC opponent, but as we all know, the ability to win football games is probably the worst way to evaluate a team. Wins come in a distant second to style points. If you didn’t have a player do a full twisting double backflip into the endzone over no less than 3 opponents, did you even really win?

Sure, I guess you can say “but isn’t defense an important aspect of football,” and my answer is, “sure, if you’re living in the 1930s.”

Eleven sacks may impress on paper, but you know what else looks impressive...points, and you don’t have to scroll through the box score to figure out how many points a team scored.

Again you might say, “but Clemson went with a conservative offensive game plan because Auburn was incapable of moving the ball forward,” and again, I’ll remind you, “winning isn’t important if you don’t score a bunch of points.”

Thankfully in college football, redemption is just a Saturday away, and the Tigers have the chance to dig themselves out of their 2-0 hole this weekend as they face off against The Fighting Lamar Jackson’s of Louisville. Let’s uncork the hate.

Shifting Narratives:

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Nothing irks me more than the shifting narratives that surround Clemson football, and this game will be no different.

Before the Auburn kick, the fake Tigers were, “A THREAT TO WIN THE WEST, LOOK OUT BAMA!” and “JARRETT STIDHAM AND GUS ARE COMING FOR YOU CLEMSON!”

After Clemson performed like a tricky turn and crashed Auburn’s motorcycle into the ditch with their mistress on the back, the narrative shifted.

Instead of “Clemson dominates SEC West contender!” or “Clemson’s defense turns in legendary performance in hard fought win over top 20 opponent,” we get, “What’s wrong with Auburn?” and “Jarrett Stidham isn’t a good fit for the Malzahn system.”

When Clemson wins, the talking heads spend most of their time trying to figure out what is wrong with latest in dispatched opponent instead of talking about what is right with Clemson.

This Saturday night will be no different. All I’m hearing now is “LAMAR JACKSON IS WAY BETTER THAN LAST YEAR, HE’S AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF NATURE!” and “LOUISVILLE IS MUCH IMPROVED OVER LAST YEAR, IT’S FINALLY TIME FOR THEM TO KNOCK OUT THE LUCKY CLEMSON TIGERS.”

After the game, we’ll see the same old headlines. “Louisville dominated by Clemson. What’s wrong with Lamar?” and “ “Is Bobby Petrino one of the most overrated coaches in college football?”

Florida State:

Jamie Rhodes-USA TODAY Sports

Florida State is directly responsible for this entire “Louisville Football” fad.

Look, there is nothing wrong with being a 2nd tier ACC team with a great quarterback. Louisville fits that category perfectly, and honestly, should be happy that they have scraped together enough talent make it to the 2nd tier, but no, Florida State had to no show in Louisville last year and get their doors blown off by a one dimensional Louisville team.

This is on you Florida State. You showed up to their rinky dink stadium, named after a 2nd rate pizza chain, with a half assed game plan and no focus and they ran you off the field.

Louisville hasn’t defeated a ranked team since the 3rd week of last year, and yet, here comes the hype train, because you still think that teams are going to lay down when they see a few tomahawk chops.

Florida State, you’re supposed to be one of the adults in the ACC room. You’re not supposed to let one of the snot nosed kids tie you up and beat you with a baseball bat, but again, here we are.

You single handedly won Lamar Jackson the Heisman last season, and now Game Day, that’s right, College Game Day, will be forced to endure Louisville, Kentucky instead of any number of actual college football towns this week.

All I’ve heard on twitter is, “Yea, but did you see what we did to FSU?” Louisville fans ride that game like South Carolina fans ride that one time the Gamecocks ambushed a disinterested Alabama team at the Cock Roach.

I swear, Taco Bell Stadium only holds 55K, but if you check Louisville twitter, at least 300K Louisville fans claim to have seen the game, live and in person, when we know 250K of them spent most of the game trying to get their rabbit ears in just the right position so they could catch a rerun of Judge Judy.

Florida State, you should be ashamed of yourself. You need to sit in the corner and think about your actions, and while you’re at it, maybe reconsider your attempt to out Alabama, Alabama in the opener. You’re not that good. You’re no Clemson.

Excuses:

Joshua S. Kelly-USA TODAY Sports

Louisville, there is no shame in losing to Clemson, pretty much everyone does it, you’re not special. Instead of accepting your fate as an inferior football program like grown men and women, Louisville refuses to take their L like the experienced losers they are.

Listening to Louisville fans concoct conspiracy theories about why they lost to Clemson is like listening to Rick Pitino try and explain away hookergate.

Deep down in their hearts, they know they’re lying.

You know Louisville football fans realize Clemson is the better football program just like Rick knows that 2013 banner is coming down, but they just can’t say it out loud, because it hurts the one thing they have, their distorted sense of pride

I’m sure Louisville Twitter has been working overtime on their Sunday excuses this week.

They’ve got the family tree of every possible ACC official researched, just in case someone’s 2nd cousin wore a Clemson hat in a picture 15 years ago.

They will dissect every penalty against Louisville like the Zapruder film, and will give you at least 15 reasons why it wasn’t actually a penalty and how the refs are obviously biased.

They will scream for pass interference every time Lamar Jackson launches a pass while running for his life.

Every tackle Clemson makes will be a potential assault that should probably be prosecuted, but won’t be because you know the NCAA, ACC, The FBI, and the Mafia are all in cahoots with Clemson.

Louisville fans, I’m a humble man, I don’t ask for much, but when you take your L on Saturday, take it gracefully, and move on. You’ve got a lot of other 2nd and 3rd tier ACC teams left on your schedule. Heck, Lamar might put up enough yards against Syracuse and Virginia to win himself another Heisman.

Just take your L and move on, there is no shame in losing to Clemson.

Bobby Petrino:

Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

It’s impossible to tick off Petrino’s long lists of failures, lies, and improprieties in this article. That’s an entire article on its own. In fact, it’s this article!

I recommend reading the article, because it’s truly astonishing that any program would be desperate enough to hire someone even a career Washington lobbyist would find morally corrupt.

I will, however, pull out a few choice quotes:

Jurich, the Cardinals AD, on the ongoing process of cleaning up Petrino's Louisville mess:

“Bobby went to areas where he thought he was strong recruiting and some of them panned out and some didn't. That's the nature of it. But listen, we had to clear out a lot of discipline issues. And our numbers suffered. We cleared 21 kids out of here, and that's a lot. That's a big hit for anybody to take, Eric. I don't know anyone that has. But we want to do things the right way.”

Anonymous SEC coaches on the ongoing process of cleaning up Petrino's Arkansas mess:

“They are going to be slim in a lot of spots. It's going to take them three years to get a good foundation. It's a product of bad recruiting - which is typical of a Bobby Petrino school. It's the same thing that happened at Louisville that got Steve Kragthorpe fired. Petrino didn't leave him any players. It's the same thing at Arkansas. They have no players on defense. Petrino would load up on offense and leave the cupboard bare. That's why he can't ever get over the hump.”

So there you have it folks, not only Bobby Petrino a terrible person, but, in the long run, he’s not really that great of a college football coach either. His coaching history is littered with diminishing returns and extensive post Petrino clean up jobs.

Why would Louisville rehire Petrino after all they know? You’ll have to ask them, but I guess, they figure he’s not even the slimiest guy in an athletic staff meeting with Rick Pitino in the room.